This Weinachten provided my family with the best times we’ve had in years. The very last gift was a small round box my stepbrother Mathias handed to my mother. Inside were two small knitted socks, one red, one blue. Between the socks and cotton padding was a sonogram. There was a small pause before comprehension dawned as everyone at the table looked at the young couple. The celebratory drinking started shortly after.

My mother decided before I had even got on the plane that we would travel together and catch up. I suggested Hamburg, or more formally the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. What I originally came to see was the Miniatur Wunderland; a 6,400 square meter attraction of impossibly detailed miniatures. Imagine a COSTCO sized building with a fully active ecosystem of trains, planes, buildings, communities, an active airport, a day/night cycle, and over 200k human figurines. Pictures do not capture the extraordinary amount of lights, mechanisms, detail, and thought put into each model; so this video will have to suffice.

The first night in Hamburg we met some acquaintances that soon became friends in St. Pauli, the quarter of Hamburg famous for its mile of sin known as the Reeperbahn. That area is ripe with sexual energy and you couldn’t find a better place to go in Europe for a night of drinking with friends. If I wasn’t there with family, that portion of the trip would need to be omitted from my travelogue.

While I will never forget being harassed by sex workers on Herbertstraße, what left the biggest impression on me was a hole in the wall Portuguese restaurant named after its owner, Franco. There was no menu in Casa Franco. You enjoy your meal by paying 20 Euro while the open kitchen prepares the fresh catch of the day in 4 courses. While we were being seated our new friend Markus pointed out that the soft orange walls were significantly darker than the ceiling. I couldn’t help but think there must have been an epic kitchen fire that was just not cleaned up thoroughly. Amidst our introductions to one another, Franco walks the three slate steps to our table carrying our appetizer of shrimp in a garlic wine sauce. Did I mention it was on fire? Not just a dull blue blaze when you light strong alcohol (which we enjoyed throughout the evening) but a tall flame, over a foot high!  All the while having a casual conversation with us in his comical and romanticized German. All of this accompanied by good wine, live guitar and serenata, an owner who loves to yell Caramba and, in jest, berates his cooks for their cuisine and expediting. Franco ended up treating the four of us to the best dining experience we could have had. That evening, my mind was opened to what I now see as the right way to serve food to people.

Our 3 days in Hamburg were just not enough. My mother and I were upset that we didn’t make it to the Fisch Markt open on Sundays. Alas, we had festivities back in Grafenwoehr to prepare for. We ended it the best way possible-splitting a case of Astra Rott Licht (6% ABV) between four people. There was a lot more to Hamburg than I imagined. It’s a place I’ll be visiting again and would recommend you do the same.

I did my best to conceal it but I was more than disappointed that I came home to not a drop of snow. I flew all the way to Germany in the heart of winter with scarves, gloves, and multiple coats prepared for the wurst, worst. The same crappy weather I left behind in Washington was there to greet me when I got off the plane.

Just before New Year’s Eve the rain drifted much slower to the ground, dancing in the wind, but not sticking to pavement. That night Tobias asked me if I wanted to go snow hunting with his friends. We get in his 4-wheel drive Audi and sped off into the night. With his foot all the way down on the pedal I watched the speedometer climb over 120 km/h when we finally found snow-covered roads and fields. When we arrived Tobias asked “Haben sie angst?”. Having watched The Green Lantern on the plane, I thought the line “I have no fear.” seemed appropriate. I realized I was the only one in the car with a seatbelt on and who hadn’t been drinking that night. All those drifts and offroading, on what I believed to be a ski course, seemed like a terrible idea that I was happy to be a part of.

The only day I had to myself in the 10 day vacation was well spent in Nürnberg. It’s just a 45 minute train ride from the nearest train station in Vilseck.

None of my friends really believed my story of accidentally finding Nürnberg’s red light district, but it really doesn’t look like anything during the day. To me it was a magnificent wall with beautiful arches made of black, mossy stones unlike anything we have in a country so infantile in comparison to Germany. On my way back from the 1 FCN fan shop I took the same route, still mesmerized by the dark stone wall as dusk approached. As I hurried to catch my train a pink glow to my left distracted me from the wall.  I was instantly struck with the realization as to why I was the only one on this street before. Scheisse! I used my experience on the Reeperbahn to keep my head forward and ignore the aggressive sex workers behind the windows and caught my train home with just one minute to spare.

I know this is a generalization, but seriously, the Germans know how to party. In a town of just 9000 people, you would think the locals would be content with a few sparklers and roman candles. No, not Grafenwoehr. It was turning 650 years old and it was going into 2012 with a well-lit sky, battle simulators that needed to be detonated with car batteries, and illegal fireworks you can pick up from the Czech border just 30 minutes away.

While I lived in Germany for over half my life I hadn’t realized until this trip how much I took for granted. I’m not sure when I’ll be returning, but while I was there I already knew that I would. So I did my best to capture the things I experienced with this photo gallery, I hope you enjoy it-

Ubahn stop to St. Pauli

Surprise on Weihnachten

Tobias' bar

blutwurst

Franco with the appetizers.

Say Cheese!

fireworks

fireworks1

fireworks2

Well lit tree in the Hamburg craft market.

Hamburg rivers near the Miniatur Wunderland.

Hamburg docks

A nice local symbol of love.

Gluhwein und Bier

Neuerwall

Lit stands in the Hamburg market.

knodel

Nice piece from Miniatur Wunderland.

Murdoc in Hamburg train station

Nurnberg Craft Market.

nurnberg2

nurnbergaltstadt

Spin this ring in Nurnberg 3 times around for good luck.

The Occupy Movement didn't skip over Germany's 2nd largest city.

The mesmerizing wall in the red light district.

An inside look of the Herbertstraße.

seafood

shrooms

Cheers!

A Look Back At 2011

We accomplished a lot this year and added a number of awesome folks to our team. In 2011 MerchantOS…

• Reached the 1,000 customer mark. We now have over 1,300 retail locations using our point of sale software. Thank You!
• Processed our One Billionth dollar in transactions. We averaged $1.4 milion per day in our point of sale system.
• Added 7 full time employees, a half timer, and an intern.
• Released 28 versions of our software with over 400 individual improvements and fixes.
• 525,570 minutes of up time, 10 slow, 20 minutes of downtime for a subset of customers. 99.994% uptime overall.
• Secured a bank loan for 2012 expansion.
• 2 awesome parties, many ping pong matches, beer-pong games, and trips to the bar downstairs. Along with 2 babies born.

Seven 2012 Apocalyptic Resolutions

It may be the end of the world, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still make plans:

1. Focus on making our point of sale software awesome:

I want to take our point of sale to the next level. Making it easier and more pleasant to use while adding functionality. This is a difficult balancing act but we have a good plan for how to accomplish it and I’m excited about the challenge.

2. Have Fun:

I started this company because I didn’t like the other jobs I had. There weren’t fun. It wasn’t rewarding the way I wanted it to be. In 2012 I want to make sure that everyone that works here (and hopefully our customers) have some fun, enjoy their work, and feel valued.

3. Provide the best dang support:

We spent a great deal of effort searching for awesome support heroes to hire this year (adding Ciara, Ryan, Chris, Vanessa, and Jered). We try to treat our employees like we’d want to be treated ourselves. And we ask our employees to do the same for our customers. We have fun. We also take our jobs seriously and really care about our customers and the product we give them. That’s our recipe for awesome support.

4. Hire awesome people:

We are what the people who work here make us. If we want to be awesome we have to hire awesome. We’ve already got 2 (a programmer and designer) lined for the start of the year. We’ll probably add a few more before the year is over. I’m going to make sure we take the time to hire the right people.

5. Stock pile food, gold, and guns…

To fight the zombies. Oh we might also need this.

6. Sign up another 1,000 retail locations:

This is a high bar to reach for. With purely natural growth and without any change in our marketing strategy, I’d predict we will add somewhere around 700. How will we get those extra 300?

We have a bank loan so we can spend more on Adwords, that will help. We are optimizing our sign-up process. Working on our website marketing. We want to improve the look and feel of our application while we make it easier to use and more powerful. And I’ll just give you a hint there might be something with Mobile and web based accounting systems (no promises! It’s software development, nothing is guaranteed).

7. Build a product we are proud of.

Most of all in 2012 I want to build a product we are proud of. I want to write excellent code, create awesome user interfaces, build solid and reliable server and network infrastructure, and provide awesome support.

I’m Proud Of Our Employees, And Thankful To Our Customers

Without the great people that work for us and all our customers who support us, we wouldn’t be able to take on these goals. So thank you for making this all possible!

Best Wishes In 2012!

• Two Posts to Craig’s List, one each for Customer Hero, and Office Admin
• 117 applicants for Customer Hero
• 203 applicants for Office Admin
• 106 phone interviews (~10 minutes each)
• 43 short in person interviews (~10 minutes each)
• Seven long in person interviews (~1 hour each)
• 30+ Hours Of Interviewing Candidates
• Three awesome folks hired.

I’ve already covered our phone interview process pretty extensively: Why You Failed Our Phone Interview. So, here’s what I’m looking for in an in-person interview.

Preparation – You Ready For This?

At this point, we’ve weeded out the truly un-prepared during our phone interview. Yet still, amazingly, some people walk into an in-person interview completely unprepared. There isn’t too much to say on this one, except: do some preparing. Eat your Wheaties, get a good night’s sleep, dress appropriately (I’ll cover this a little more later), read over our website, and generally do whatever you need to do to walk in confident and prepared.

Bonus: Take some time to think about why you want this job in particular. How does it fit into your goals professionally and personally?

Nerves – The #1 Interview Killer

This one is especially hard for me to critique because I wouldn’t consider myself a super confident person socially. However, I think I can fake it long enough to get through an interview, and I think you can too. For the lucky few of you who don’t have this problem, skip on down to the over-confidence section!

Here are my main tips for playing it cool and not letting your nerves get between you and the job you want:

• Pump yourself up for the interview. Do some laugh yoga, or whatever it takes to get yourself in a positive mood.
• Cover the basics: smile, make eye contact (with each person in the interview), shake everyone’s hand, introduce yourself clearly.
• Don’t be afraid to joke around during the interview. This is a little tricky, because you don’t want to treat the whole interview as a joke, but don’t be afraid to laugh or throw out a few puns.
• Remember: we are people just like you.
• Speak clearly.
• Bring some water with you. If your mouth gets dry and it’s bothering you. Take a second to take a drink. If Steve Jobs could sip from a water bottle during a key note, you can definitely do it during a job interview.

Why it’s hard to give a thumbs up to a super nervous candidate: I just can’t accurately judge your personality. Your nervousness obscures who you really are, which is what I’m trying to find out. If I can’t find out who you really are, what motivates you, how you’re going to interact with me and the rest of the team, then I’m left with a big question mark. I’m looking for a candidate that gives me positive signals that they are the right one for the job. Nerves obscure these signals.

You Can Be Overconfident

Nervous people, skip this, it doesn’t apply to you.

Don’t walk in thinking you’ve ‘nailed it’ before you actually have. We’re interviewing a lot of people. Assume that a lot of those people are awesome too. There isn’t a lot I can say on this subject, it’s fairly straight forward–have some sprinkling of humility. Typically this is more of a problem for men, for whatever reason.

What Not To Wear

What to wear to an interview totally depends on where and with whom you are interviewing. If you’re not sure if you should wear a suit or sweat pants, you should probably ask. You need to wear something that fits with the company and people you are interviewing with. This doesn’t mean you have to look just like us, it just means you shouldn’t come in a 3 piece business suite and tie if I’m gonna be in jeans and flip flops (well that’s really Ivan’s role). It’s going to make us both uncomfortable.

Why is it important? Whether we want to or not, in some ways we are going to judge you based on your appearance. It’s just human nature and it’s extremely hard to override.

Tip: Figure out the company culture. Is it super professional (lawyer’s office?), or is it casual and laid back? Try to fit your apparel choices to this. But, I’d say it’s ok to dress up more than you think you would just coming to work on an average day. You still want to look put together and like you are taking the interview seriously.

Bonus: Think about the position you’re applying for and what sort of personality we might want to hire for that. We usually give some clues in our job description. We are not totally superficial, but again it’s human nature, and it definitely can’t hurt your prospects to try to craft your image a bit to what we are looking for.

Age, Race, Gender, Or Other Protected Status

We’ve had candidates draw attention to these issues regarding themselves during the interviews. If you do feel the need to bring it up, say, if you want to make sure it’s not an issue: Keep it brief, to the point, and then move on.

Why? Because we won’t be able to say anything in response. The only thing we can say is something really generic like “we don’t discriminate on the basis of…”. If you bring it up over and over, it makes it an uncomfortable conversation because there is nothing for us to talk about.

For example if someone is significantly older than me and they repeatedly mention this throughout the interview. I start to think “is this person going to have issues working for someone way younger?”.

We keep these issues off the table when making a decision on a candidate, and you can help by not making it the focus of your interview.

Motivation

This is a big one. Why do you want to work here? We know that no one is going to work for us forever, but we still want to know that this job is something you want to do (for reals) and you are going to be happy doing it. Hopefully you’ve thought about this before you even applied because if you really don’t want to do this type of job you’re wasting both of our time.

Personality

This is like ‘Location’ in real-estate. And unfortunately it seems you either have it or you don’t. That’s not to say that one personality is right for every job. It takes all kinds. But there are certain personalities that don’t work for a particular job. For example, if you don’t like to talk, then talking customers through problems all day on the phone is not going to work for you.

Most of the stuff I’ve written about up to this point is to get you to the point where we can fairly evaluate your personality and fit with the position. I’ve come to rely on personality as my main final criteria in picking candidates. I’ve been burned when I’ve ignored it, and delighted when I’ve focused on it.

That’s what it looks like from our side of the table. I’d love to know your opinion. Please leave a comment below.

You may have seen our postings a few weeks back about MerchantOS hiring for a couple of positions, the first being an office administrator to help streamline things back at headquarters, and the other a new customer support person to join the best damn support team in the galaxy.

Both positions are tall orders at such a dynamic and fast growing point of sale company, and the hiring team of Luke, Christina, and Justin are looking for just the right people.

For the office admin position, we received 203 applications via our online process, and 86 of those were selected for phone interviews. The support position brought 117 applications, 47 of which will get phone interviews. That’s a whopping 133 phone interviews that the team will be conducting this week!

It shows how important we feel hiring is – we cast a wide net, and want to hear from as many folks as possible in order to hire the exact right person for the job.

Like all things at MerchantOS, hiring is a healthy mix of fun and professionalism. That many phone interviews requires some silliness to break it up and keep it fresh. Intense table tennis matches, reality shows, and just bouts of hysterical laughter are known to break up the intense telephone sessions.

“I’m looking for the best attitude. Skills can be learned, but attitude is often hard to change.”
- CEO Ivan Stanojevic

MerchantOS founder and CEO Ivan Stanojevic said about the process, “My favorite thing about hiring is when we come across good candidates. You can tell pretty quickly if they might work out. Once I have that impression, I love to find out more about them and determine how well they could fit in the company.”

This round of hiring, we’ll be adding two more people to the company, that will make six new team members this year, bringing the company to a total of 14. That’s a lot of growth, and the most in one year by far for MerchantOS. “It’s fascinating more than anything else.” said Ivan, “Of course, this is what I wanted for the company, but seeing it actually materialize can be unbelievable at times. I’m excited, and trying to adapt to the different stages in our company as they come and pass. Nothing stays the same long now.”

The Bottom Line

The biggest message to applicants for these – or any positions we hire for: be yourself, NOTHING you do or say will get you hired on the spot, the process is a proving ground, and we take it seriously. There ARE things that can get you immediately crossed off of the list, the most important of which is not knowing anything about MerchantOS or point of sale. So, use your googles, study our website, learn a little about us – or don’t and keep up that job search.

Well, that’s it for now, we’ve got another few days of phone interviews and then we’ll be moving on to the daunting in-person interview process. Stay tuned!

After I got that little SNAFU fixed up with registration, we began our hostile takeover of Interbike. Hawley, QBP, Raleigh, Chrome, GoPro Cameras, and a few hundred other vendors had some spectacular booths that could have swallowed our 10’ x 10’ whole. Even Mr. Sock Guy had a two story exhibit with a green plush carpet and couches on the 2nd floor that begged for a hookah in the middle. Mr. Sock Guy had a great view of the expo too!

Now, while the other vendors got plenty of praise for their products and services, I have considerable doubts that they received nothing but positive feedback and inquiries. Our booth was showered with praise, intrigue, and FREE T-SHIRTS! This is the first time I’ve really got to meet our customer base, so I wasn’t totally prepared for our celebrity status there.

Justin and Ivan started going to this trade show 7 years ago. That was a different time as Justin explained to me. “We used to have to go out and harass people with, “Hey, what point of sale are you using?” As per Christina, “Even last year we had potential customers approach us with skepticism and had no idea who we were.”

This year was different by all accounts. There wasn’t a single potential customer that showed up at our booth that walked away without sincere interest in what we have to offer. The six of us there were in non-stop “here, let me show you why we’re awesome” mode. MerchantOS as a product has grown with new features and integrations that really seemed to entice bike shops on the hunt for a Point of Sale system. While those were great talking points, it was our customers and their willingness to share their success with others that we owe this prosperity to. So again, I’d like to thank you for all of your commendations and feedback.

We want to give a special thanks to Gary & Jean Schumacher from Cain Park Bicycles as well as Gene & Sarah Wells from Fat Tire Cycle. Them showing up to the event wearing MerchantOS shirts from a previous Interbike put an instant smile on my face and a song in my heart.

Alyssa from T3 Multisport and Jo from The Green Commuter, you two get my personal thanks for mentioning me in front of Justin & Ivan. You gave the leverage I needed to write off the drug & stripper funding as a corporate expense!

About the only not-awesome thing that happened from this whole experience was my liver giving me two weeks notice.

Cheers!

Feel like seeing more of our shenanigans at Interbike? We have a full album on Facebook of our adventures in Lost Wages, Nevada.

Chris Lange

Hey guys! I’m thrilled to be joining the MerchantOS family, and can’t wait to start chatting it up with our awesome customers. I’ve been in Olympia, WA for more than 6 years now, where I graduated from The Evergreen State College, helped run a breakfast restaurant, and grew a love for avocados. I love to doodle, make comics, read comics, and be comical. I’ve also got a soft spot for dumb action movies. I’m looking forward to keeping your business running smoothly!

Ciara Wolfe

Raised in Northern Nevada, Ciara happily moved to a more lush Olympia, WA about 7 years ago. She’s an Evergreen State College Graduate and mother of one very busy 18 month old. Ciara is happy to be a part of the MerchantOS team. When she’s not at her desk she can be found perusing the comic books, playing board games with her partner Nate, hanging out in the garden, and teaching her son Asher the wonders of the world. She can’t wait to tackle your problems and brighten your day!

Ryan Wickett

Ryan was born in sunny California and lived there for three years, more than long enough to gain an appreciation for the cooler climate of the Olympia, Washington area, where he has now lived for 21 years.  Curently finishing up his bachelor’s degree at The Evergreen State College, Ryan is now working part time for the most awesome company in Olympia (you know who I mean)!  In his free time, he likes playing old video games (especially on the Sega Genesis) and getting lost in a good comic book or fantasy novel.

Support

Bryn

Murdoc

We know one reason many of you love our service is our customer support. It’s a cornerstone of our business.

Bryn and Murdoc are both here to help you out when you need it. We hope that more calls will get picked up immediately and if you do have to leave a voice mail, make sure you get called back quickly. We screened nearly a hundred applicants to get down to these two. We like them, and we think you will to. But give them a little extra patience as they learn all the details of the system.

Part of this arrangement is Scott will be moving towards more complex support issues, importing, and testing. So don’t worry if he doesn’t pick up your phone call he’s still here and working hard.

Development

Luke

Justin and I have been fairly happy with our development speed but we have to admit it’s slowed down a bit over the last year. This is probably just a result of growing up. There’s more non-development things to do and it’s taken some of the wind out of our development sails. Luke is here to focus on the software and help keep the system enhancements coming. He’ll be joining Nate and Justin’s elite programming task force.

Office Administration

Veronica

With all the action going on, a lot of additional work has been generated. We brought in Veronica as our in house support person. Her main job is to help everyone here help you by easing our workload.

The Other 50 New Members Of Our Team

That’s you if you’ve signed up since our last update on how we were doing! We just added our 650th retail location. Thank you to all the new and existing customers that make what we do possible. Keep on retailing, and we’ll keep on doing our best to improve our software and service!

Christina:

We recently got this email from a customer and I think it sums up our thoughts on Christina:

“I just wish to pass along my opinion that I think Christina is an absolute gem. In every interaction I have had with her she has been tremendously gracious, clearly very knowledgeable and effective, and in general just a delight to deal with.”

Christina makes our life a lot easier by taking great care of all our customers. She’s great at staying level headed even when a customer is being rude or overly demanding. I think most of you will agree she deserves a big “Thank You” from everyone involved with MerchantOS.

Scott aka The Kernel:

He’s a man with many hats around MerchantOS. He covers for Christina when she’s not in the office and when we get overloaded with support requests. Scott also has taken over the roll of IT guy for the office. And he’s heading up a long term project to do automated testing of our system so that we can produce great software more quickly and with less bugs.
He’s always got a positive attitude and helps make MerchantOS a fun place to work. Thanks Scott for being a great team player and a dedicated hard worker!

Nate:

Nate’s been busting out some awesome code. He’s crazy smart and also a dedicated colleague. You probably won’t get to spend much time talking to Nate but if you did you’d find out he’s also a nice guy.
He’s been working on integrations with vendors like QBP, Hawley, and Specialized. And he’s almost wrapped up integrations with Freshbooks and Shopify. In his spare time he’s made some awesome catalog improvements we’ll be showing you soon. Thanks Nate for your hard work and clever code!

Behind The Scenes

As a customer I think it’s sometimes hard to understand all the hardwork that goes on behind the scenes to make something like MerchantOS what it is. So if you’ve been appreciating using MerchantOS make sure to let our staff know. It always brightens their day to get some positive feedback!

Thank You For Using MerchantOS!

Without all our customers none of us would have these awesome jobs or co-workers! We hope you are as stoked about using our software as we are about being able to make it for you.